As he spoke, he peered so intently into the masked visage of the Sicilian dancer, that she precipitately retreated.
"Nay—then I must use my spells," she replied after a moment's thought, and glancing round the circle, which was constantly increasing, she added slowly, "my spells to raise the dead, since love and passion are dead in your consecrated breast! Mother—my mandolin!"
The smile of her lips seemed to gleam even through her mask as she threw her tambourine by its silver chain over her shoulders, taking instead the instrument, which one of the Calabrians handed to her. Tuning her mandolin she again turned to Eckhardt.
"But first you must fairly answer a question, else I shall not know which of my spells to use: for with some memory alone avails,—with others hope."
And without waiting his reply, she began to sing in a voice of indescribable sweetness. After the second stanza she paused, apparently to await the reply to her question, while a murmur of delight ran through the ranks of her listeners. The first sound of her voice had fixed Eckhardt's attention, not alone for its exquisite purity and sweetness, but the strange, mysterious air which hovered round her, despite her demeaning attire.
Yet his reply partook of the asperity of his Northern forests.
"Deem you such gossamer subtleties were likely to find anchorage in this restless breast, which, you hear, I strike and it answers with the sound of steel?"
"Nay, then so much the worse for you," replied the dancer. "For where the pure spirit comes not,—the dark one will," and she continued her song in a voice of still more mellow and alluring sweetness.
Suddenly she approached him again, her air more mysterious than ever.
"Ah!" she whispered. "And I could teach you even a sweeter lesson,—but you men will never learn it, as long as women have been trying to teach it on earth."